Musings and Travels...: Bienvenidos a Costa Rica

Arrival
I was met at the airport in San Jose and driven to my hotel, a beautiful place recommended to me called "Kap's Place." I was given some herbal tea and walked around the neat interior, with bright colors and a kind of water-fountain area that makes one feel like you are strolling outside. I knew something was a little off-kilter when I found several people watching Denver channel 9, and later was to find out, rather inexclipably, that Costan Rican TV (or this one at least) includes all of Denver's ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates, meaning that the nearly 7,500 miles I traveled is barely recognizable through the airwaves. Another great thing about the hotel is that it had over a dozen types of herbal teas on hand, most of which I had no idea what they were because of the Spanish, but every cup was a new adventure!

A short sleep later, and I was greeted the following morning with the Costa Rican soccer team kicking off the entire World Cup 2006 in Germany and against Gemany. I walked about 15 minutes to Avenue Centralie (forgive my atrocious Spanish spelling), walking through a neat and very green park, and finding myself in packed crowds on this pedestrian-only street dressed red Tico soccer jerseys. The game was shown and could be heard in every corner store one walked past, every home, every television and radio imaginable. I found a giant screen at one corner where hundreds of fans had assembled for the game and somehow nudged a space for myself in crowd. The pandemonium was amazing. For the opening kick-off, and then the ensuing two CR goals, people jumping up and down, banging on the closed shop-iron doors, hugging, throwing things in the air, all as stern looking police officers circled the area and kept an eye out for anything a tad more serious. A walk during halftime found several more of these gigantic screens hung at other street corners with full sound systems to allow fans to watch everywhere. It was a big deal! The government declared a holiday, so all institutions were closed-- making it hard for me to exchange money to get the Costa Rican Collones, because that Friday was the game and the weekend followed it. For me it was just another reason to root against the Germans, not that another one was needed, but they prevailed just the same, a 4-2 victory, but it was a great game, great atmosphere goes without saying, and I too now sport a red Tico jersey.
There doesn't seem to be much to see in San Jose, so I spent most of the following few days walking around the main pedestrian street some more, watching all the World Cup games, getting one veggie meal after another of rice and beans at the sodas (small CR style restaurants), yet still admiring the fog-covered and not-so-distant mountains that seem to be at every turn. It was amazing just how much the city would change going one small block east or north, say, as it turned from a very cosmopolitan, crowded, busy thorougfare to suddenly being a rather back-alley feel with hardly anyone around save a few straggly characters wondering who the gringo is. I don't know if I've ever seen a city change so much and so fast, well, I suppose some places in India I've seen similar, but the Latin American feel is totally different. Speaking of India, I went to a neat market place here in San Jose, with everything from fresh meat to traditional clothing to spices, etc. It is known as a rather busy place, but compared to similar things I've seen in places like India, Mexico, and Morocco, I was struck by how sanitary and neat it was-- no gut wrenching smells even! Reminds me of a guy I met in Bangkok once who said he's been a vegetarian for a few decades, and what caused him to start? Literally, walking through a meat market in Calcutta... never touched animal or fish again!

I also met the daughter of some Vipassana friends in Boulder who was doing a legal internship in San Jose, and we checked out the Museum of Pre-Colombian gold, it was really neat. Had all kinds of gold figurines that the Native peoples had made before Europe arrived, and described their uses by the village shamans-- I was struck by how much this reminded me of what I've heard of traditional Chinese medicine, but that's not really too surprising...

After a couple days I repacked my bags and found myself back to the airport, to meet with many people coming from many different places in what seemed rather hopeful circumstances. After a little waiting it all turned out, though, and with Terry (my fellow volunteer teacher), Mary (the site director) and her husband, and Noreen (the other Trainer), we drove the 2.5 hours into the CR countryside, stopping once at a roadside Italian restaurant, past decaying bridges over tropical streams and rough roads (though again a piece of cake by Indian standards!) to get to EL IVNU at about 1 a.m., and a night sleep in what should be many here...

The Country
I woke up the next morning to the sound of nature oppressively from all directions! Bugs, frogs, birds, all kinds of animals. It's hard to give an adequate picture of how alive these tropical climates are to anyone who hasn't seen them-- hard for me as well, because I don't know how I could have prepared for being somewhere just so incredibly alive and fertile at every inch. It doesn't take much work to have a good garden, and the landscaping in the area is the most exquisite you can hope to find anywhere. The first couple of days took some weeks to pass, as is normal in such new settings, the most remarkable thing being the equally (or perhaps even more so) indescribably heat and humidity. It made the simplest tasks take a whole morning or more, and when I though about putting forth some thought on a lesson plan or (gasp!) curriculum, it seemed like the hardest thing in the world. It was so overwhelmingly hot and humid that it was about all you could do to just keep your mind functioning throughout the day, to not let the mind roll in where one could go to escape it back to "normality." So we had a short tour of the site, relaxed in the omnipresent hammocks while trying to remember to drink water and to understand the words of the book being read, and spied the incredible variety of plant, animal, reptile, and insect life all around us. I even braved a walk of town, which consisted of a small convenience shop, a beautiful large soccer field, an elementary school, and, um, I think that's it!

Which, coicidentally, is causing me more than a little strain. Under any other condition in these eight or so years I would wholeheartedly welcome this kind of situation, this present time being the _only_ exception to think of, as I gradually grapple more with the realization that I might not see much more of the World Cup... a proposition that seemed unthinkable just a week ago (I have to say the sensations were pretty unpleasant at first!). There is no TV at the site and none in town. I spent way too many hours hoping to believe in miracles by finding an Internet site that would have a live feed with a less than Highspeed connection, and I braved that dripping temperature to bike 3 km to another town in hopes of finding another TV. The options are dwindling to trying to quickly make a soccer-mad friend in this small town, take a 45 minute bus ride, or try to figure out how I can do that small detail of teaching while I also happen to be here! The NY Times and BBC websites just don't seem to quite cut it with that emotion and beauty of the sport.................................................

So, back to another night of off and on sleep, with large unrecognizable fruits hitting the roof like a bomb from overhead (they could literally knock you out if they ever managed to score a direct hit), the heavy rains sounding like machine gun fire, and the myraid bugs getting past the screenless windows and into a mosquioto net that doesn't really seem feasible anyway. And another day of moving through the heat, that humidity that turns any paper or cardboard material into pure lifeless forms that tear and compress at any touch, try battling these two elements as the brain tries to go one Spanish book page at a time! There is also a great cook onsight who makes a good array of veggie dishes, and the most incredible fresh fruits juices of more fruits I have never seen much less am able to pronounce (though that Starfruit Juice was great!). And as the rains come and the thunder breaks so loudly I think it must be napalm, sipping a good cup of coffee, there's a phrase I never though I'd find a way to say for myself, in this lifetime at any rate!

Two more SITers came, a MAT37 and staffer, and we had a great evening at Mary's place, trying to avoid their young dog from tearing our clothes to pieces as we had some sumptuous bananas dipped in chocolate fondue. We gossiped all about mutual friends and mutual understandings of the SIT culture (which is a very close second-- and certainly feels less unwholesome-- than engaging in similar kinds of Vipassana gossip) and then debated about whether to go to the local karaoke "bar", but decided not to since the karaoke spot in town isn't really a bar at all, but rather someone's living room who'd we have to wake up as he set up the equipment for us to sing into. Such is the small town life. We do have a big send-off party at this spot on Thursday, for the teachers now leaving that Terry and I will replace (we vistited their classes the other day, where I was about as much fun as a bag of stale coal as I sat on kindergarten chairs, with my slow thought processing, light fever, sore throat, and general weakness). But the classes were impressive... they are given to the local community free of charge by Mary, and anyone who wants can learn free English. It is quite an amazing community, the town and the site (the town is only about 500 people and just about every house I walked past had its door wide open, the occupants out on the porch in rocking chairs, the males ususally shirtless as they stared at the gringo). The biggest challenge I saw in the beginning class wasn't English forms so much as the very concept of learning and speaking in another language. In this class, a gaucho (local cowboy) stood up and said in translated Spanish, "We are not professionals. We are not academics. We are simple people. We are farmers and housewives and laborers. We want to learn English but we are simple people. We will try hard, but please have patience with us." It is funny, though, and again extraordinarily similar to Vipassana, to again be somewhere on the other side of the world and have so many concepts, theories, people, places, and even "vibes" that are the same all over again. Both these things are such small communities that go the world over and back. And though they may have all kinds of other connections, and for something worldly it's one of the better things I can hope to find, that small subtle but important difference-- boy does it weigh on me sometimes. Anicha eh. Speaking of which I was just delighted and surprised to find there will be a Vipassana course in Costa Rica in July I can probably serve a small portion of!

Ok, that's about up to speed now, other than the amazing tropical hot springs that all of us went out to today (though don't be too envious, it didn't do anything to take me out my misery than an hour sitting does, an hour that is an hour the world around-- well, unless it happens to be India or Burma :)

By the time it got there we saw the real reason it's called a Rain Forest, with the rains and thunder and lightning showing no mercy. When one bolt hit the nearby river, we were all to evacuate the pool and wait for the storm to pass. One nice thing about the rains, though, it has a way of cooling things down... the pools were great, with one at 48 degrees Celsius and actually beginning to rival those steaming pots of Japan. The pools were also very natural like, carved rock places where you could sit and that aliveness of the tropics all around again... below, here's a picture of the gushing river after it swelled up with an hour of rain water...